How to learn Sanskrit alphabets?

Sanskrit is one of the official languages of India and is popularly known as a classical language of the country. Considered to be the Mother of all Languages, it belongs to the Indic group of language family of Indo-European and its descendants, which are Indo-Iranian and Indo-Aryan. Sanskrit is known as India’s classical language. It is one of the 23 official languages of India and belonged to the Indic group of language family of Indo–European. Therefore Indian ancient literature and religious books in Hinduism, Buddhism and Jainism also first written in Sanskrit, such as the Vedas, Upanishads, Epics, Shastras, Puranas and many works on Medicine, astronomy, astrology, and Mathematics of those times were written in Sanskrit.

Sanskrit has a similarity between Latin and Greek languages. According to Sir William Jones, “Sanskrit is perfect than Greek, more copious than Latin and more exquisitely refined than either.”

The three Cs such as Culture, Civilization, and Cultivation of East countries were all well denoted by this language which was evolved even before many countries didn’t have a specific language. The script, grammar, and phonetics of the Sanskrit language are such that most of the neurons of the human body get activated. Sanskrit is being taught and learned still in many parts of the world.

Sanskrit follows a Devanagari script. Devanagari is a form of an alphabet called an abugida, where each consonant has an inherent vowel (a), that can be changed with the different vowel signs. All alphabets together are known as Varnmaala (वर्णमाला).

Vowels or Swar are called अच्  and Consonants or Vyanjan are called हल्

There are 52 alphabets in the Sanskrit language out of which 11 are vowels and 41 are consonants.

1 – Vowels in Sanskrit :

Vowels are also called swar(स्वर) in Sanskrit, it’s pronounced as ‘sw’ as in ‘swivle’ and ‘ar’ as in ‘Argentina’.

11 vowels of Sanskrit are as follows with their pronunciation ;

अ (a) pronounced as A in Argentina, or U in  Urgent, Umbrella

आ(aa) pronounced as A in Ask, Are

इ(e) pronounced as E in English, Engine

ई(ee) pronounced as Ee in Eel, Steal

उ(u) pronounced as U in Wood, Look

ऊ(oo) pronounced as 00 in Loot, Pure, Souk

ऋ(ri /roo) pronounced as Ri as in Writ, Wring, Rooster

ॠ (ॠग्वेद, ॠचा) is pronounced a bit like the ir in Kirby 

ए(a) pronounced as A in Table, Taste

ऐ(ai) pronounced as A in Cat, Ant

ओ(o) pronounced the same as English alphabet O in Oats, Own

औ(au) pronounced as Aw in Awful, Raw

ळ(L+dh) pronounced as Malayalam or Tamil

’तमिळ’ और ’मल्याळम’

ऌ is pronounced like a short ल् sound without any vowels following it.

ॡ is pronounced a bit like the le in cycle

ऍ (ai) is pronounced like the an in man

ऑ (aw)is pronounced like the o in the dollar, collar

ऎ is pronounced like a short ए

ऒ is pronounced like a short ओ

The letters 

Anusvar and Chandrabindu (अनुस्वार व चंद्रबिंदु) – 2

(ं) व (ँ)

Aphas (विसर्ग) – 1

(:)

Halant (हलंत)

( ् )

The consonants (व्यंजन) – 33

क ख ग घ ड़

च छ ज झ ञ

ट ठ ड ढ ण

त थ द ध न

प फ ब भ म

य र ल व

श ष स ह

Combined consonants (संयुक्त व्यंजन) – 5

क्+ष=क्ष

त्+र=त्र

ज्+ञ=ज्ञ

श्+र=श्र

द्+य=द्य

Sanskrit alphabets are designed in such a way that they start from the back of the mouth and end at the front of mouth. Each row in the Hindi alphabet is spoken from one specific portion of the mouth.

1st row: क ख ग घ – K, Kh, G, Gh are spoken from the back of the mouth (velar)

2nd row: च छ ज झ – Ch, Chh, J, Jh are spoken from the middle of the mouth (palatal)

3rd row: ट ठ ड ढ – Strong T, Th, D, Dh are spoken with the tongue curled and then hitting the front (retroflex)

4th row: त थ द ध – Light T, Th, D, Dh are spoken such that the tongue touches the teeth (dental)

5th row: प फ ब भ म – P, F, B, Bh are spoken such that lips get closed while pronouncing (bilabial).

Fun Fact: Ventriloquists avoid such sounds where the lip movement is a must since it gets noticed. So, they write their script such that प फ ब भ म are not there.

Printed alphabet grid

I recommend you get a card that is printed with the script organized in traditional form – vowels, 5×5 grid of the consonant groups, then the semivowels and sibilants. Keep this card with you all the time while reading.

Get another card printed with common ligatures for conjunct consonants.

Get a kindergarten text, start with simple words. Use this to understand both the letter *and* the sound. Do not merely attempt to map the sound to an English sound, these are often not the same. Once you’ve mastered small words, move to bigger and bigger words, you’ll begin to understand how consonant+vowel and consonant+consonant combinations work. Use your cards as a reference, to recognize the alphabets. As you use it a lot, the pattern in the cards will settle into your mind, and you will not need it as much.

Getting a hang of sounds

Getting the aspirated and unaspirated consonants right is important. Each of the 5×5 groups has a non-aspirated stop, aspirated stop, vocalized, aspirated vocalized and a nasal consonant. Vowels have long and short forms (many of them) – these are important.

Familiarise yourself 

Familiarize yourself with the system of writing. Not just with the letter shapes but with the way the alphabet is used. There are multiple different ways. Some are based on syllables, some are based on consonants and vowels, some only write consonants and long vowels, others write vowels on top of the consonants, some connect their letters, some stack them in blocks, others do it differently again. With some, you need to memorize a lot of extra rules, while others can be straightforward. Learn the order of how they are written and read.

Learn the sounds these characters represent. 

To memorize the characters, I recommend knowing how the corresponding phonemes sound, e.g. associate ค not with an abstract “kh”, but with a concrete sound, like the first sound in the word “cat”. Or better, both! Getting familiar with the pronunciation helps.

Mnemonics 

Use mnemonics to memorize letter shapes. If you find it hard to memorize the letters’ shapes, use mnemonic methods, like associating letters with familiar objects that you can also associate with sounds. E.g., “რ is r, because it looks like a radio”; “架 means shelf, because it’s made of wood (木), is square-shaped (口) and needs to be strong (力), and it’s pronounced similar to 加”; “ง is ng, because it looks a bit like the IPA character ŋ”, and so on… the crazier, the better. 

Learn a few letters at a time

Learn the letters or symbols a few a time rather than all in one go. 

Careful with misleading similar alphabets in another language

Do not mistake an alphabet that resembles two languages to have the same pronunciation. For example, in Russian the following letters look like English letters but are pronounced differently: B = [v], H = [n], C = [s] and P = [r]. So now you should have no difficulty deciphering the Russian word PECTOPAH – it means restaurant and can be transliterated as RESTORAN.

Associate letter shapes with familiar objects

Try to associate the shapes of letters with familiar objects: some letters may look like letters or numerals in your native language, others may remind you of animals, objects or people. A good idea would be to get hold of  books that teach children how to use these techniques.

Practice makes all perfect

Practice writing the letters as often as possible. Learning the standard way to form the letters: i.e. the shape, direction and order of strokes, will help you to memorise them. If possible, take a calligraphy class, to improve your handwriting and to read other people’s handwriting. Use the alphabet to write familiar words. Names of people, places, languages, or even whole words in your native language. Feel free to use the alphabet as a code for your native language. 

Transliteration

Practice writing things in the new alphabet then transliterating them into your own native language alphabet. Keep a letter-pronunciation table next to you. Then try transliterating them back into the new alphabet. Also try writing your own language in the new alphabet. Read through the special rules of Sanskrit available online. 

Read aloud

Practice reading texts written in the new alphabet as often as possible to initiate instant recognition of the alphabets. Even if you don’t know all the letters or symbols, you will be able to make some sense out of the whole thing. Don’t underestimate your powerful apophenic brain! You may also have trouble reading initially – and may find yourself reading each alphabet in a word slowly, (you’re not just reading but also recognizing each alphabet) to speak the entire word. But this would improve with time when you can actually just run past those and speak the complete word. We all have learnt our native tongue when we were very young, in the very same manner! 

Recognizing the alphabets

Label things around your home or office in the new alphabet with translations in your own language. This will increase your exposure to the new alphabet and help you to recognise keywords and phrases.

Test yourself 

Try reading aloud whatever material you get hold of. There are online newspapers and articles. This will reinforce your alphabet learning via recognition.  

Playing a game with the conversation partner 

If you know of a native speaker who is willing to help, ask him or her to read things aloud, to converse with you and you can write the alphabets to check with him and ensure you heard them right! Then you try to do the same and ask your friend to correct your mistakes.

Every person is a different type of learner. Some can learn new scripts very quickly (I usually need less than a day), some others need graphical help, or just practice, or need funny mnemonics. Try them out, and you will find your way. you could also explore more resources as under:

Omniglot for pronunciation, Wicktionary is your best resource, Masteranylanguage, Forvo

Good luck!